The unofficial grant to the Australian World Orchestra was made just days before the former Minister for the Arts was replaced. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
De Waart delivers Strauss’s superman and a delightful Belgian surprise. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
The Russian violinist is one of classical music’s megastars but this is one celebrity who hasn’t let fame go to his head.
Everyone has an opinion on everything these days, and social media is making it all to easy to sound off.
Sydney, Perth and Brisbane will sparkle with three ballet baubles for the festive season.
An exclusive behind the scenes look at Australia’s first ever TV ‘Soap’ Opera, The Divorce. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
San Francisco’s latest Post-Minimalist outing raises two musical smiles for the price of one. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
This new recording on the San Francisco Symphony’s own label presents two works written three decades apart by American composer John Adams. Although Adams is most commonly associated with Minimalist compositional techniques, these are only very obliquely in evidence in this world premiere recording of Absolute Jest (2013 Most unusually, the work is scored for string quartet with symphony orchestra – “pretty much a repertory black hole,” as Adams notes dryly. This piece takes as its starting points phrases from late Beethoven string quartets, predominantly Op. 131, 135, and the Große Fuge (Op. 133), weaving them into “a colossal 25-minute scherzo” with orchestral elaborations, digressions and counterpoints, and nods to other Beethoven works. “Absolute Jest is playful, in the literal sense of scherzo as joke, but it is by no means lightweight” It’s hugely playful, in the literal sense of scherzo as joke/jest, but it is by no means lightweight, flippant or ironic. Rather, it’s a vivacious, lively homage, a recent example in a long line of composers (including Brahms and Stravinsky, to name but two) looking back and ‘sampling’ the work of their… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
It’s the time of year when many of us in the media enjoy letting our heads swivel back and forth, Janus-like, over the old year and the new.
Rush, Russell Beale, Salminen & Skovhus: four Lears tackle the tortured monarch. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
“King Lear is about power. The story shows us that nobody has so much power that it can’t be taken away in a minute.” Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
Chris Latham discusses the impact of the technological miracle from 1910 that changed the way we listen for ever. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
Google Play Music’s world-first initiatives offers music lovers the chance to download and stream the latest concert recordings. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
